Highlighting vocabulary words; underlining passages; drawing stars and smiley faces in the margins—these are the hallmarks of ninth grade English class. Students are encouraged to interact with the text, almost holding a conversation with it, so they can be prepared to comment and discuss. Yet when the teacher prompts her class—“Does anyone have something interesting to share about the reading from last night?”—she is greeted with silence, broken only by light whispers of book pages.

Most of us remember these uncomfortable moments the same way we remember the awkward haircuts and wardrobes that accompanied them. But now, picture a computer screen covered in hashtags and “at” signs—#shakespeare and @3rdperiodenglish. Lively debate and direct quotes continue to fill the threads four hours after school has ended. Students upload pictures of their annotated texts and ask their classmates to help them understand the nuances of iambic pentameter.

This is Chris Bronke’s freshman English class at North High School, a public school in Downers Grove, Illinois. Last August, Bronke realized that in order to “make learning more social,” he would need to utilize the very networks on which his students socialized. Introducing Twitter to his classroom was not an impulsive decision. His mission to engage students more directly was years in the making, though he describes his pedagogical progression that led him toward Twitter as somewhat trial-and-error. When he began teaching 11 years ago, he used text-marking and active reading in his classes because these were the practices that he, himself, had learned while growing up. The trouble with these practices, he found, was that he could never know where in the reading his students were having trouble, and any feedback that he did have for them was delayed until the next day’s class—a problem that eats away at the time left for teachers to dig deeper, forcing them to spend class periods rereading and reiterating.

#bronke3rdhour the stylistic choices on pg 34 add a certain drama to the chapter

Then he came across a program called TodaysMeet—a forum reminiscent of AOL messenger, but designed for students and teachers to converse online. This was a move in the right direction he thought, as students began to open up in online discussion and retain those ideas for class the next day. Unfortunately, there were flaws in this operation as well. Students could participate in multiple conversations yet fail to address one another in any meaningful way. Additionally, they could respond to a question many hours after it was posed, leaving the original poster completely unaware. Over time, the lack of a direct response system, as well as an inability to track themes and comments, rendered TodaysMeet less than desirable.

On his own time, meanwhile, Bronke was becoming immersed in social media—using Twitter to interact with other educators and administrators as well as to gather intel for his fantasy football teams. He began to wonder: Could Twitter provide the social and communicative platform that his previous curriculum failed to foster? After clearing the idea with the administration at his school, sending home and retrieving parental permission slips, and setting up a culture of respect and open dialogue in his classroom, Bronke set each of his students up with a Twitter handle. Fortunately, Downers Grove provides its students with school email addresses that use a shorthand code for their names, so Bronke was able to create handles that secured his student’s safety while allowing them to recognize each other online.

@kkun0794 what do you think they symbolize? maybe new hope? #bronke3rdhour

The only flaws that surfaced this time were technical in nature—requiring him to go over simple do’s and don’ts for using Twitter’s interface.

Within days he found students tweeting at each other multiple times an evening, mentioning and “favoriting” their peers’ thoughts, and providing ample material for classroom discussion. His students were being “more careful and reading more closely,” Bronke noted. Conducting conversations online allowed him to track their comprehension as well. Because most of his students used Twitter for recreational purposes, they could also utilize their experiences in English class and include their class hashtags as they responded to tweets from One Direction and Tim Tebow.

Today’s high school students might be the first generation to master the art of posting respectful, deeply considered ideas in real time—and in 140 characters.

And as an added bonus: Bronke used his already-established education-oriented Twitter handle. This meant that the student comments he retweeted were often retweeted and “favorited” by teachers and scholars who wanted to support their ideas. These students learned that their voice mattered even outside of the classroom setting, and that engaging in real dialogue could be fun and worthwhile.

Janice Schwarze, the associate principal of curriculum and instruction at Downers Grove, notes that Twitter helped to “make instruction more targeted.” She, Bronke, and the other teachers at Downers Grove who will implement social media curricula this year recognize that this is only one tool in their expansive educational toolbox. It could never replace in-class discussion or long form essay writing—skills that students will always need. These educators do, however, believe that using Twitter and other platforms can help students hone other skills that their generation will need for the future. Learning to be concise, engaging in online dialogue about serious and important topics, condensing information, and forming an opinion in real time—these are skills that will only become more important as technology takes deeper root in society.

Really glad I had @MrBronke and #bronke3rdhour by my side last year. This upcoming school year -english, mostly- will be a piece of cake!

There is a lot of debate about the merits and flaws of using technology in the classroom—some educators call for the end of paper while others cry for no more iPads. But Bronke’s successful experiment raises a different sort of question about how social media might evolve as these students get older. Will they continue to use social media platforms to have serious discussions about literary works or historical accuracies? Might they begin to view Twitter, and other platforms that follow it, as forums for posting not only selfies and memes but well-formed arguments?

A recent Pew report, "Social Media and ‘The Spiral of Silence,’” found that even in an age of rampant communication, people are still hesitant to engage in real intellectual discourse because they fear opposition online, as well as in person. If other teachers follow Bronke’s lead, today’s high school students might be the first generation to master the art of posting respectful, deeply considered ideas in real time—and in 140 characters.

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Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

Democrats who have struggled for years to sell the public on the Affordable Care Act are now confronting a far more urgent task: mobilizing a political coalition to save it.

Even as the party reels from last month’s election defeat, members of Congress, operatives, and liberal allies have turned to plotting a campaign against repealing the law that, they hope, will rival the Tea Party uprising of 2009 that nearly scuttled its passage in the first place. A group of progressive advocacy groups will announce on Friday a coordinated effort to protect the beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act and stop Republicans from repealing the law without first identifying a plan to replace it.

They don’t have much time to fight back. Republicans on Capitol Hill plan to set repeal of Obamacare in motion as soon as the new Congress opens in January, and both the House and Senate could vote to wind down the law immediately after President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on the 20th.